


we are your real place

by thimbleoflight



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-08-04
Updated: 2014-09-25
Packaged: 2018-02-11 19:09:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 12,751
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2079783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimbleoflight/pseuds/thimbleoflight
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the battle with Gyumaoh, Sanzo had four sutras, a weird bottle that the Goddess of Mercy had given him with the promise that she was returning something she'd borrowed, three teammates who were inexplicably still following him, and no idea what to do with any of it all.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. we were the people that we wanted to know

The first time Sanzo woke up after the battle, it was 4 am, and all the others were still sleeping, but there was a quarter of a pizza on the table. It was cold, but he ate it anyway, considering briefly the possibility that it wasn’t for him and deciding he didn’t care.

The second time, Hakkai was awake, and there was cold takeout.

“Uh,” said Hakkai, “I think this is for us?”

“Does it really matter?” asked Sanzo.

Hakkai laughed. They ate in silence. The room smelled like pizza and takeout, so Sanzo opened the window. Wind fluttered the empty takeout boxes a little, but not so much that Sanzo wanted to close the window again. It felt good. It smelled like dirt and sand and desert—infinitely preferable to old pizza smell.

Sanzo sat back down, and was grateful that he was with Hakkai, who did not expect him to talk about anything that had happened.

The battle had been long, and awful, and they were tired. Gyumaoh was dead, Gyokumen Koushu was dead, Sanzo had four fucking sutras, and Kougaiji and company had turned on his father and stepmother at the last moment. They’d destroyed the source of the Minus Wave, and had no idea of how it would affect the surrounding area, and no idea if it wasn’t too late to save everyone.

Gojyo had still had his youkai tattoo.

Kanzeon Bosatsu had shown up—so weirdly familiar, and so cheerful with Sanzo, calling him _kiddo_ like she'd known him his whole life—given them each a tiny bottle, told them she was returning something that had been borrowed from them, to thank them for their service to Heaven, and then left.

What the fuck was he supposed to do with _four sutras_?

He’d stuffed them in the little duffel bag that he’d been keeping a spare uniform in, and then clutched it to his chest. He’d stuffed the bottle in, too, and didn’t open it. He didn’t let go of it all the way to the inn, and even Gojyo didn’t make fun of him.

“It’s funny,” said Hakkai, “but I really think I could go back to sleep. Even though I think it’s been a day that we slept.”

“No idea,” said Sanzo.

Hakkai did not ask the question that Sanzo was dreading, though, knowing Hakkai, it was on his mind.

_Please_ , thought Sanzo, _let us get back to Chang’an, and figure it out from there. Don’t keep looking to me. I don’t know any more than you do._

Goku snored. Eight years ago, it had bothered Sanzo, when they’d had to share a room for the first time, but now it was a comforting noise, like the sound of a fan in summer or rain on the roof. It meant everything was moving along like it was supposed to. The world spun, crickets chirped, the moon rose and fell in the sky and waxed and waned, and Goku snored like a fucking bear.

He crawled back into bed, adjusting the sutras where he’d stuck them behind his pillow and counting them through the fabric of the bag by touch. Goku pulled over all the blankets, and Sanzo let him have them, enjoying the cool night air.

* * *

 

At 10 am, he was awake again, this time with Gojyo.

“Breakfast?” said Gojyo.

“You just want me to buy you more cigarettes,” said Sanzo.

“Well, I wouldn’t say no, if you were offering,” said Gojyo.

“I’m out, too.”

He hadn’t felt much of a need to smoke, but then, he hadn’t been awake. His head hurt like hell. Yeah, okay, maybe cigarettes first.

They found a quiet spot to smoke on the way back from the store. It was a nice morning, sunny, a little too warm for Sanzo’s tastes—the kind of warm that made him sleepy ordinarily but right now was just kind of making him sweaty and gross-feeling. When was the last time he’d taken a shower? Fuck, it must’ve been like, a week at least.

They sat down on a park bench.

“Well, now what,” said Gojyo.

“No clue.”

“You got four of—” Gojyo glanced around. “—Four of ‘em. Isn’t that… kinda a lot? Does anyone need that much of… whatever it is you do with them?”

“I don’t need it. I guard it.”

“Sounds stressful.”

“That’s why I won’t take more than two. But I won’t give up the ones I inherited,” said Sanzo. “The others need a place.”

It wasn’t so much that he couldn’t do the job, but that it wasn’t his job. Every time he touched one that wasn’t the Seiten or the Maten, he felt it cringe away from him. He wasn’t the rightful inheritor. Maybe nobody was.

Maybe he should just… dump one in the ocean and one he’d bury underground. Keep the two his master had given him, even though the Seiten felt uncomfortable in his hands. It complemented the Maten, of course, and maybe with time it would grow to work with him.

Gojyo stuck his cigarette stub in the ashtray on the trashcan.

“And us?”

“You don’t need to follow me, even,” said Sanzo. “Your services are no longer necessary.”

Gojyo stared at him.

“Are you for real?”

“Yes,” said Sanzo.

Gojyo laughed, in that weird, loud barking way he had sometimes, that made passerby stare at them and probably startled a couple of birds out of the trees.

“Never thought I’d hear you say that! That’s _something_.”

“Honestly, I thought if you heard it, you’d stay out of stubbornness,” said Sanzo, and Gojyo laughed again.

Sanzo couldn’t remember ever seeing Gojyo look quite so… gleeful.

_Oh._

It was strange that he had never considered that Gojyo had a life he might actually want back. Was the kind of person who’d leave on an indefinitely-long assignment where they’d probably die really the kind of person who had friends? 

Sanzo hadn’t had any friends of his own back home.

Maybe Gojyo had a plan to actually… _go_ home. Well, whatever. It wasn’t as if they’d gotten along well, anyway.

“Well, we still have to get home,” said Gojyo. “You’re not rid of me yet, asshole.”

“Because I definitely wanted to keep you, _specifically_ , here against your will,” Sanzo said flatly. “Believe me when I say I would rather have gone by myself.”

Gojyo thunked him on the shoulder with his fist, lightly.

“Okay, first of all: we’re _friends_ , you shitheel,” he said. “Even before this. You know any of us would follow you anywhere. We followed you fucking halfway _across the continent, for three years_. And that’s not even—did you open the bottle the Goddess gave you?”

“No.”

“O-kay,” said Gojyo. “Tell you what. Don’t worry that you’re never going to see us again, all right? Because even if we got back to Chang’an, even if I got a house and a job and a wife and some kids—as unlikely as _that_ prospect is, if you asked me to go on another one-in-a-million-chances-of-survival roadtrip from hell again, I’d do it, no questions asked. Can’t speak for Hakkai, of course, but it’s a fair guess he’d go too. And Goku—well, does a bear shit in the woods?”

Sanzo didn’t know what to say, so he said, “Thank you.”

Gojyo didn’t rib him about it, either, which really—fuck, maybe he’d died or something and been replaced by one of those zombie doppelgangers. Gojyo didn’t say anything. He looked… upset, somehow.

“I’m glad,” said Sanzo, “that it was you guys who came with me. Everyone I cared about in the world at the start of this journey was in that Jeep. I would be… sad, if I thought I would never see you guys again.”

Gojyo’s face was still crinkled in a frown, but then he smiled.

“Sanzo’s a sweetheart! I always _knew_ you cared. Now I’m hungry. Can we go get some real breakfast?”

* * *

 

No longer sleep-foggy after breakfast, he grabbed a newspaper. The news mostly didn’t matter to him, but he read some of it anyway and then there was a sudoku puzzle and he had a pen, and after it was done he felt a little less… antsy.

There wasn’t much else to do, so he started on a crossword.

Goku woke up around noon.

“Hey,” he said, smiling. How the hell could he always be so cheerful?

“Hey,” he said.

“Haven’t seen you in a while,” said Goku, stretching.

“We slept next to each other for the past 48 hours.”

“You know what I meant.”

Sanzo shut the newspaper.

“Good to see you, too,” he said, and if it surprised Goku that he said it, Goku didn’t act like it.

“Did you bring back food?”

“No.”

“God damn. And I made sure to get the extra pizza so you’d have some. Teach me to be nice to you ever again.”

“I’ll buy you lunch.”

“Really?”

Three years and he probably should have learned that the best way to handle any situation was to promise any of the party food. No matter. Goku was pleased, and bounced alongside him overjoyed at all the restaurant prospects. At least he got to keep the gold card.

There was still stuff to do, after all. Sanzo had two sutras he couldn’t keep. He tried to explain this to Goku along the way, and once they were seated at the table, Sanzo had gotten through the particulars of scriptural resonance and how it could tear the world apart.

“I already know all this,” said Goku. “Isn’t it just like whatever happened between you and Sharak?”

“That’s exactly it.”

“I thought somebody had to die for you to pass on a sutra." 

“Somebody did die. Nii died, and the previous Sanzo who held the Muten died. They didn’t pick successors.”

“Isn’t that Kami guy the successor?”

“He’s also dead, anyway. And I could overrule it if he wasn’t.”

“Oh. Good.”

“So we’re not going back to Chang’an straightaway. Or I won’t be.”

The sutras felt heavy on his shoulders. Jikaku would have laughed at him.

“Wait, what?” said Goku. “We’re not going together?”

“We’re going together if you want to.”

“Oh, geez. You freaked me out.”

_Even now, you still think I’d leave you behind._ Surely there was something smartassy he could say about it. Maybe, though, now wasn’t the time.

Sanzo settled for, “I just wanted to give you the option.”

* * *

 

They drove out to the desert, where Sanzo drew two lines in the sand, crossed, and sat in the center of them, murmuring to himself.

“What’s he doing?” asked Gojyo. Goku put a finger to his lips.

“Sh, it’s important.”

“Yeah, but what _is_ it?”

“He needs to find who will carry the scriptures,” said Hakkai. “This ritual should guide him.”

“He had two, though,” said Gojyo. “So it’s not like he _can’t_ have more than one.”

“He only wants to keep two,” said Goku. “He’d be okay with three, though.”

“I gotta admit,” said Gojyo, “I still don’t really get why he doesn’t want all four.”

Sanzo glared up at him, ready to ask if he had fucking listened _at all_ during their conversation that morning. Gojyo grinned.

Oh. Teasing.

“Because I don’t fucking want to! Keep your voice down.”

They watched him for a moment.

“Go get yourselves coffee or something,” said Sanzo. “This might take a while.”

He meditated, and spoke the words his master had spoken to him, not sure how he remembered them, and then he managed to get _slightly_ in touch with the Three Aspects. It was the spiritual equivalent of a crackly static radio—this was not, at all, the right place or the time to be contacting them. They generally only descended into lavish temples with giant glass windows into empty aquariums. Still, though, it was enough.

The others came back with coffee, and then they went for lunch, and then Sanzo got sunburnt so they went for lotion, and then they came back and all Sanzo could tell them was, “This time, we’re heading northeast.”

_East towards the dawn, north towards the mountains, find the siblings who will wield the power of creation and annihilation_.

He repeated that for them.

“At least it’s kinda straightforward,” said Gojyo. “Vague as hell, but no nonsense shit.”

They set off at sunset, to take advantage of the cool night air, and kept going through the dawn.

It was a cloudy night, and a cloudy morning. Sanzo missed the desert stars, but at least he wouldn’t get sunburnt today. Gojyo and Goku slept in the back, so he had silence to think. It couldn’t get any better than that.

His master had told him of days when there were Sanzo priests and a lineage that was made by fighting and working towards the goal, priests who studied for years and trained and had to be the very best of the best. _Sorry, Master_.

Maybe, though, if Koumyou had wanted to continue that tradition, he’d actually have trained _him._  

Jeep puttered along the mountain roads, growing obviously slower as time went on, and this time they were prepared for the idea of getting altitude sickness, but not really prepared for it by itself. Fortunately, they made it to Sharak’s fortress that night, though rather late and rather ill. It was still—well, a wreck. Jeep collapsed into Hakkai’s arms, tired as hell, and Hakkai murmured comforting things to him.

Sanzo tried to find the constellations he knew between the crumbling walls and couldn’t, but he caught the edge of the moon peeking up over one side. Alone, a single sutra would’ve echoed the hum of Sharak’s bells and her chants, but all four of them absolutely vibrated. It… kind of hurt his shoulders actually. He’d have to separate them later.

Hassan greeted them at the door.

“We weren’t expecting you,” he said. “We thought you’d just, y’know. Take the easier road back.”

“Yeah, well,” said Gojyo, throwing an arm around him. “We weren’t gonna just walk right by your place without saying hi.”

It had been agreed upon that they were not to share Sanzo’s mission. Sanzo might, with Sharak, if he saw fit, but not with anyone else.

“Well, now that you’re here, you might as well join the conference. We were going to send a delegation to Chang’an after we’d worked out the treaties here—we figured immediacy was the most important thing, but you were head of a temple there?”

“I was.”

“Then you might as well stay here for this,” said Hassan. “We have Gyumaoh’s son here—he’s very nice, when he’s not blowing up our home.”

“Oh, hey! Kougaiji!” said Goku. “Cool!”

Everyone turned to stare.

“He may not be happy to see us,” said Hakkai.

“Aw, he didn’t like his dad anyway,” said Goku.

“Hey. Don’t say stuff like that,” said Gojyo. “That kind of thing can get complicated.”

Because of the delegation from India, Hassan explained, there were only two rooms for the four of them, with one bed per room, and—well, announcing their presence in the temple would have been such a big fucking _deal_. They snuck in, late at night, utterly exhausted. It made more sense to just crawl into bed and announce themselves officially in the morning.

It wasn’t like Hassan didn’t tell Sharak they weren’t there, and it wasn’t like she’d be offended. Sharak was…

If Sanzo had written to anyone, he would’ve written to Sharak. She’d taken him aside before he left her temple, just to press a kiss on the side of his forehead. _Please come back, Genjo Sanzo_ , she’d said. _Don’t fuck it up, and write a letter once in a while, maybe_.

He hadn’t had much of a chance.

Up the long stairs to the last few guest rooms they went, then. Big beds, but still. Ordinarily, since Goku snored, Sanzo would have taken Hakkai to share the room. This time he requested Goku.

Goku hadn’t questioned Sanzo’s request, either. And Gojyo and Hakkai never minded sharing a bed.

He hadn’t exactly _slept_ better with Goku in the bed the past few nights, warm against him, and snoring like a fucking bear. But waking up and seeing Goku there, drooling on the pillow, being awake just long enough to roll back over and fall asleep again himself, was a comfort.

Sometimes Goku had thrown an arm around him, too, and Sanzo—

He didn’t hate it. He could have hated it, he could have shoved Goku off in the middle of the night. It would have been reasonable. It would even have been prudent.

That night, they caught each other in the middle of the night, awake—they were both light sleepers, after all, and sharing a bed could really fuck up how much you slept.

But it was such a comfortable bed.

“Mm, Sanzo?”

“What?”

“It’s gonna be a while before we’re back in Chang’an, isn't it?”

“Yeah.”

“Y’know what I miss?” said Goku. “I miss my room.”

“Yeah, well, if you’re really tired of sleeping in here with me you can go out in the Jeep. I won’t, but I won’t miss your sorry ass if you decide to. You _drooled_ on my _shoulder_ last night.”

“I didn’t mean _that_.”

A moment’s pause. There’d been years when Sanzo hadn’t slept well, and he’d treasured every bit of peaceful sleep he’d had.  Here and now, the moonbeams shining through the window looked like the ones at home, and Goku breathed the same way he always had during every single one of their road trips, sleeping while Sanzo kept watch.

He missed Chang’an, too.

“What do you miss?” he asked. Was Goku even still awake?

Sanzo could feel himself getting sleepy again, too. Was there a fucking _featherbed_ on this thing? Sanzo had never slept on a bed with a featherbed in his entire life. He was beginning to wonder if the temple back home could spare the expense.

Drowsiness slurred Goku’s words, when he did answer.

“Going to bed in a bed that’s mine. Shutting a door to go to bed, having a lot of space to myself. I had space to myself for years, but I didn’t get to choose whether I could come in and out of it. And I didn’t like being alone for years after I got out, but now… I think being alone’s really nice if you can choose it yourself. And I miss you knocking on my door in the mornings to get me out of bed.”

Shit, Sanzo could see it now. The knots and the cracks in the wood of Goku’s door, the cold floor under his feet in the mornings. _Goku, get up, we’ve got work to do. C’mon, we gotta walk like ten miles today. Let’s go_.

“That’s a dumb thing to miss,” said Sanzo. “I could do that all the time here if I wanted.”

“It’s not the same.”

“I’ll do it anyway. Since you like getting up early so much.”

Goku laughed.

“I don’t miss it _that_ bad.”

“Yeah, that’s definitely why you mentioned it.”

Goku yanked the blankets, and Sanzo scrambled to grab them back, as Goku laughed and then the resulting-tug-of-war knocked over Sanzo’s glass of water on the nightstand. Since Sanzo firmly held that it was Goku’s fault, as he’d started the whole mess, and Goku firmly held that it was Sanzo’s fault, since it was on his side of the bed, they had to rock-paper-scissors to determine who would get up to find a towel. 

Goku threw rock. Sanzo threw scissors.

Irritated, and more than a little frustrated by the fact that he’d let Goku talk him into the rock-paper-scissors debacle, he got out of bed and made his way down the long hallway of the guest rooms. There were ten bedrooms on this floor of the wing, with a bathroom at each end of the hall, where presumably there would be towels. He hoped. 

Low-lit lanterns were spaced out along every few doors, but he still could only barely make out the end of the hallway and the decorations on the walls, which were just above the lanterns: intricate carvings in the woodwork, painted jewel-tone reds and blues and yellows that all appeared dark in the low light. Sanzo couldn’t see clearly enough to understand what they depicted.

Sanzo saw the kid before she saw him, and she yelped, clutching whatever it was she was holding to her chest. Sanzo could see… oh, of course. The top of some pork buns poking out, wrapped in napkins.

“Monk!” she said.

Shit, she had such a _grating_ voice. And Sanzo had known that he’d be on the same floor as Kougaiji’s crew, but he thought they’d gotten in so late that he wouldn’t have to deal with it until tomorrow… Ah, well.

“Lirin,” said Sanzo.

“No one told us you were going to be here,” she said, staring at him. And by all rights, any diplomatic official would have been pissed. Sanzo winced. This was _not_ how he would have wanted Kougaiji’s group to find out he was here.

“If we’d known you were here on business, we probably wouldn’t have stopped,” said Sanzo. “We’re leaving soon. Tomorrow, if we’re not welcome. We have business to conduct elsewhere. Even the Sanzo of this temple doesn’t know we’re here yet.”

“Aw,” said Lirin. “That’s kinda soon.”

“I’m sure your brother will appreciate the lack of Sanzos ganging up on him.”

“Nah,” said Lirin. “He’ll be glad you’re here to tell everyone it’s true he switched sides in the middle of the battle. He doesn’t want to tell them himself, it sounds cowardly and fake—”

A door in the hall swung open.

“Lirin!” said Yaone sharply. “Come back here!”

“I was talking—”

“Please forgive her, priest,” said Yaone pleasantly. If Sanzo didn’t know Hakkai, he’d say she wasn’t mad at all.

“Nothing to forgive,” said Sanzo.

Yaone frowned at Lirin as though that was the exact thing she was afraid of, and said, “Lirin, please. It’s bed-time. What were you even doing awake?”

“Sharak said I could get food in the middle of the night if I wanted.”

“Oh, did she?” said Yaone, drawing Lirin back into the room. Sanzo nodded, and continued down the hallway, listening to them chatter as he reached the end of the hall.

Goku was asleep when he got back to the room, or he would have told him what had happened. In the end, he cleaned up the spill, stuck the towel on the table in the room, and fell asleep next to Goku, too tired to care about the next day just yet.


	2. I hardly have places that I needed to go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I think Lirin’d like a tree best if it produced meat buns,” said Yaone, elbowing her.
> 
> Lirin grinned. “Hell yeah.”
> 
> “Now, that would be a sacred tree,” Gojyo said.

 

In the morning, they made their official announcement to Sharak Sanzo-houshi, 28th of Arhat, that they had arrived in her fortress. Sanzo knelt before her, and asked permission to stay.

“It is a pleasure to have you in my temple again,” said Sharak. “Please, follow me. We need to discuss your stay. Your attendants may wait outside.”

Gojyo elbowed Hakkai, and Sanzo wished he could kill him right then and there. Damn any warm feelings from last week’s heart-to-heart, the man was a fucking menace.  


Sanzo stood and followed her, and as soon as the door shut behind them, she crushed him in a hug.

“Gods, I’m glad you’re okay,” she said.

Kanzeon Bosatsu had done this, too, so he was sort of prepared this time for what it felt like to be hugged by a woman. He put his hands on her back and leaned into it, too conscious of his movements. She squeezed him, and almost knocked the air out of him, but it also had the effect of relaxing his shoulders, which as it turned out was another important aspect of hugging. He almost sneezed when her dark hair tickled his nose. She still did not let him go.

“Four,” she said.

“Four,” he replied.

“How are you still alive? How did you manage to take all of them? I thought they must have been destroyed.”

Finally she let him go, and gestured for him to sit.

“Everyone was either dead or evil, and I had to take them.”

“Fair enough. But you can’t keep them all.”

Here, in the center of the temple where the fight had not quite reached, the decorations still mostly stood. He liked the color, royal blue with yellow trimmings, woven with exquisitely detailed figures, a history that piqued his curiosity and would probably remain untold to him. It was an entirely different style from the temples back home, which had been austere. Sanzo could have pictured Sharak picking it herself, though it looked as though it had probably been there for a hundred years.

They sat, facing each other, as they’d done the first time he came here, but this time, she folded her hands in her lap, smiling at him.

“I won’t. I’m looking for the new Sanzos now.”

“You gonna keep any of ‘em?”

“My master gave me the Maten, and it’s been mine for twelve years. The Seiten and the Maten complement each other. My master kept both, and I’ll do the same. Likewise, the Uten and the Muten complement each other, but they’re not going to the same person. They’re going to—I think a pair of siblings. In the north. But I don’t know anything else.”

“Well, how time-sensitive is it?” Sharak smiled at him. “Stay a few days. I don’t expect you to contribute much in terms of youkai and human relations in this part of the world, but you can at least save us the cost of a courier to Chang’an when we inevitably need to let you know what’s been decided.”

“If the youkai representatives don’t mind,” he said.

“I’ll bring it up to them before I invite you in officially. Rumor is they won’t, though.”

Temple rumor mills. Sanzo hadn’t missed that.

Sanzo considered the prospect of staying in a comfortable room for the next few weeks. Not moving straight out… not that he minded camping, but it would be unlikely they’d find someplace as comfortable as this.

And less likely that he’d get to visit Sharak any time in the near future.

“I would like that,” he said.

“Good,” said Sharak. “We’ll get your group absolutely ready for mountain trekking, set you guys up with all the proper equipment and provisions. I won’t have you leaving here empty-handed.”

“I am grateful.”

“Least I can do for the first and only colleague of mine I’ve ever met in person,” said Sharak. “You guys look like you need a rest.”

“Yeah. But how are you doing?” he asked.

It was probably the first time he’d ever earnestly asked another person that.

She groaned. “Oh, you know. Rebuilding. Those guys did a number on my fortress. I’m sure you can tell.”

“Yeah. The problem with running a fortress. People keep attacking them, and then it’s not exactly a fortress anymore when they’ve beaten down all the walls.”

“Oh, yes. So I’ve heard. Hey, you had something like this happen too, didn’t you?” She grinned at him.

Sanzo felt his face grow very warm.

“I left.”

There was no way that news hadn’t gotten here.

“It’s okay. I wish I could, and I actually have experience in this. It’s happened before,” she said. “It’s so tedious. I keep delegating. Somehow renovations take forever. We were supposed to have our full kitchens back last _year_ , and they’re still trying to actually get enough wood to redo the floors from where Kougaiji’s armies tore them all up with fireballs… But now he’s in the guest rooms, complimenting… well, everything. The food, the state and breadth of the library, the intelligence of my subordinates. Surprisingly nice man.”

“One time we were lost in the desert and he returned Jeep to us.”

“There’s definitely worse houseguests than Kougaiji.”

“Anything we can do to help out?”

Sharak shrugged.

“We’ll manage. I’m just glad you came by. I knew you survived, I just… it’s nice to see you.”

She grinned at him, sheepish, and her eyes crinkled around the edges. She had actual crows’ feet. Sanzo had never met a Sanzo priest who’d lived long enough to develop crows’ feet.

“I wouldn’t want to be anywhere else,” he said.

* * *

Sanzo sat at Sharak’s right at dinner.

Sanzo noted the ancient style of the dinnerware and wondered how often Sharak brought it out for guests. It was nice, but not as nice as the best plates in Chang’an. But then, up here, she got fewer bureaucratic visitors.

Kougaiji sat at her other side, thanked her politely, and eyed Sanzo.

It wasn’t like they were friends. They’d been on the same side of a desperate battle. Sanzo’d almost died, and Yaone had healed him. But Hakkai had done the same for them before. It didn’t make them allies. It barely even made them polite to each other.

And then there were Gojyo and Dokugakuji, stiffly sitting next to each other. It was strange to meet someone that was taller than Gojyo, and frankly the dishes and utensils looked like toys in Dokugakuji’s hands. 

Sanzo had never known many families, but he’d been told that they tended to look similar. He looked for it now in Gojyo and Dokugakuji, curious. If they sat in front of him, side-by-side, Sanzo could see where the shapes of their jawlines and the slant of their eyes were similar. Dokugakuji’s nose had obviously been broken, maybe a few times, and so had Gojyo’s, but he could almost see where they might have had a similar curve originally. It was… strange.

Goku sat next to Sanzo, and then Hakkai was next to her. Lirin and Yaone sat on the other side of Dokugakuji, and Hassan was at the other end of the table.

“I hope everyone had a nice day,” said Sharak, glancing around the table.

“It was lovely,” said Yaone. “Lirin and I explored your gardens.”

Well, that answered _that_ question. Sanzo had gone to the library, and spent the rest of the day in there, reading, and he’d known that Goku and Hakkai and Gojyo had gone into town with Hassan, but he had wondered what Kougaiji and his friends had done all day.

“Oh, good,” said Sharak. “I don’t get much of a chance to show them off. I trust you found them well?”

The food was delicious—rich curry, and chicken in a thick sauce that had flavors Sanzo could never even have imagined. It was spicy as hell, and even though normally Sanzo preferred more bland food, it was perfect. The naan was fresh, and soft.

“I like your gardens a lot better than my mom’s at home,” said Lirin, and Sharak smiled.

“The gardens in your castle are legendary,” she said. “That’s a high compliment.”

“They were kinda ugly when I was there,” said Lirin.

Sharak glanced around. Yaone and Dokugakuji were concentrating on their dinners, and Gojyo and Goku and Hakkai were under strict orders from Sanzo to not say anything that would ruin diplomatic relations.

Which, apparently, had been taken as _shut the fuck up and don’t say anything_. It was probably for the best.

“My stepmother let them fall into disrepair in the past few years,” said Kougaiji, finally.

“Oh, what a shame,” said Sharak. “Still, perhaps you’ll be able to do something about it. Do you like gardens, Lirin?”

“Yeah, kinda,” said Lirin. “They’re pretty.”

“I can help you if there’s anything you’d like to know about ours,” said Sharak. “Maybe you can fix up yours when you get home, if that’s something you’d like.”

Lirin frowned at this. “I don’t know—”

“Or not,” amended Sharak quickly.

Sanzo glanced over at Hakkai and Gojyo and Goku.

“Gardening is an excellent hobby,” said Hakkai. Everyone turned to stare at him. “I’ve always found it clears the mind.”

“You _killed_ all the plants in my yard,” said Gojyo. “And then had the gall to say they weren’t good enough. I didn’t even put them there. You killed plants that had been doing just fine on their own.”

“Well, an artist must have proper tools. It isn’t _my_ fault your flowers didn’t need as much water as I gave them.”

Lirin giggled. Kougaiji stopped gripping his chopsticks hard enough to make his knuckles pale.

“A real garden’s in the flowers, anyway,” said Dokugakuji, after a pause. “Lirin, I bet you could get some real nice flowers.”

Dokugakuji sat stiffly, shoulders turned towards Yaone and Lirin, away from the rest of the room. 

“Or trees,” said Goku. “You know, like… fruit trees.”

“He just wants to eat the fruit,” said Sanzo. “He’ll eat off of any fruit tree, so if you plant some, keep an eye out. Just around five years ago, he ate these peaches from a tree in my temple. The tree only bloomed once every forty years. I’m pretty sure the other monks were going to kill him.”

“Peaches are grown to be eaten,” said Lirin, confused.

“It’s a sacred thing,” said Sharak. “…Well. _Traditionally_ sacred, anyway.”

Sanzo smirked at her, and got himself another helping of chicken. They must have remembered how Goku ate, because there was enough food on the table for at least five more people.

They hadn’t had food this good in years.

“Ah, who cares,” said Goku. “They were _delicious_. But they were just normal peaches.”

“I think Lirin’d like a tree best if it produced meat buns,” said Yaone, elbowing her.

Lirin grinned. “Hell yeah.”

“Now, _that_ would be a sacred tree,” Gojyo said. Dokugakuji laughed, while Gojyo looked away to hide his smile. They even moved, mirroring each other.

Nobody’d ever told Sanzo that families even _acted_ similar.

It was surprising how many things in the world there were to talk about besides the war, and how—after such a bumpy start—they actually managed to… do it. Hakkai talked about gardening with Yaone, who had a lot to say on the topic of poisonous plants and how to make medicine from them. Hassan mentioned particular plants from the temple’s garden that she might be interested in.

Lirin was still stuck on meat buns, which got Goku mentioning just about every dish they’d had between India and Chang’an, and Sharak telling him the recipes for some of her favorites he hadn’t mentioned. Gojyo and Dokugakuji awkwardly moved around the vague subject of ‘things that would be cool if they grew on trees’, finally agreeing that yeah, probably, it would be pretty great if you could just go outside and pick sake bottles off of a tree.

He let the chatter fill the air around him.

Sharak caught him by the arm at the end of dinner. “Yes, you’re now officially invited to the meeting tomorrow morning. Don’t skip it,” she said.

He nodded.

* * *

Sanzo was required to appear at the meeting in full uniform, so he put on the crown and considered the sutras. Even if they weren’t his, it would be wrong to abandon them, as part of his attire. Koumyou had always worn both. He draped the Maten over his shoulders, where it felt best, the Uten and Muten on separate shoulders tucked into his waistband the way that Sharak wore hers, and the Seiten again over the rest.

“Showoff,” murmured Sharak as he stepped into the meeting room, half an hour early.

He’d arrived earlier than any of the village leaders or Kougaiji’s group. Only Sharak and Hassan sat in the room.

“If I’m going to show up late and crash the meeting, I better look important enough for them to let me stay.”

“You’ll show _me_ up, greenhorn,” she said.

“As if I wanted to run the meeting. I thought I was just here to listen.”

He took the chair next to hers.

“How long are you guys going to meet for? What’s your plans for each day?” he asked her.

Sharak sighed.

“I thought today I’d have them put together a list of grievances, and then we can work out on the map where everyone’s from and the different groups. They’re coming with the grievances.”

“Tough topic.”

“Yeah, but I’m going to restrict it to current problems. You know some of the human towns are denying water to the youkai areas? It’s cruel. I never wanted cruelty.”

“I know.”

“And another youkai town has been raiding nearby human towns—for fun, not for food or money. Or so the rumors are saying. I don’t—I’ll do my best, but I know I won’t make everyone happy.”

Sanzo nodded.

“You wouldn’t think I’ve been doing this for fifteen years, and closely shadowing my predecessor for five years before that,” she said, sighing. “It’s just never… been anything on this scale before. I nearly killed myself protecting the whole area.”

“You didn’t, though,” said Sanzo.

She smiled. “‘What doesn’t kill me’, is that what you mean? I don’t think I got stronger, though.”

“You didn’t need to,” said Sanzo. “You were already strong enough.”

His arm was still scarred from the battle they’d fought, and his face as well. Hakkai had done his best, of course, but some wounds weren’t as easy to deal with, and he’d been stretched thin already helping those who were more likely to die.

“That’s the thing, though,” she said. “I could do that part. This… is different. This is—”

The door swung open, and she stopped. She sat up straighter, and Sanzo followed her example. Hassan announced, “Kougaiji, Lirin, Dokugakuji, and Yaone.”

Kougaiji sat down across from Sharak, and Dokugakuji next to him.

Kougaiji looked—there were dark circles under his eyes, and while before he’d been relatively somber, he’d never before really given Sanzo the feeling that he was angry. But now, Kougaiji ruled the entire area, or he he’d been the heir before everything had gone to shit. It didn’t necessarily follow that he was in charge now, especially because he had switched sides in the final battle.

He had to have heard the threats against him, which had been gloated over by the humans Sanzo and the rest had come across. It seemed to be well-known fact among the humans that the entire youkai political system was collapsing under the weight of its weak heir and his pink-cheeked, bright-eyed sister, that he probably cared too much about.

Sanzo didn’t care for rumors, and for some reason, the humans thought he’d been asking to hear them anyway.

“Oh, did you decide to come, Lirin?” asked Sharak. “You’re welcome to stay, of course. And Yaone as well.”

“No, we didn’t,” said Lirin. “We’re just walking Kou here before we go visit the gardens again. Oh, hey—this is the scripture Dokugakuji and Kou brought back from the desert—I recognize the writing—”

She reached out to touch the Uten, and there was a flash of light, a sound that was not a sound—more of an indescribable opening of the fabric of reality, a vibration that their ears recognized as such but which occurred on a level that didn’t register to the ear as sound. And then, the smell of grass.

The _very strong_ smell of grass, and something brushing up, tickling against his ankles and then his calves and his knees, and Sanzo barely had time to register any of these before he was confronted with the very loud, very physical sound of Kougaiji slamming his fists on the table.

“ _What the hell have you done to my sister?_ ”

But Lirin was staring at Sanzo. Dokugakuji and Yaone had reached out to shove her back from the flash of light, and now the two of them were staring at her.

“Are you all right?” said Yaone, stooping down so she was face-level with Lirin. She absentmindedly combed Lirin’s hair across her forehead. “Oh—oh my.”

“I’m fine,” said Lirin, pulling away from Yaone and combing her bangs back down absentmindedly. “It’s okay. It’s okay, Kou.”

“Your forehead,” Dokugakuji said, slowly.

“Feels kinda funny,” said Lirin, looking at her hands. “Is it supposed to do that? Your other one didn’t do that. And it didn’t do that before.”

Sharak’s conference room was now covered in knee-high grass so green and dewy that it almost looked fake. There was a dot on Lirin’s forehead, dark against her tanned skin. A few sunflowers sprouted among the grass. A chair was knocked over.

Sanzo shut his eyes.

Sharak patted Lirin’s head. Kougaiji stared.

And if Lirin was—that meant… Oh, _shit_. He glanced at Sharak, who shook her head almost indefinably.

He kept his mouth shut.

“Welcome to the Sanzo-houshi, Princess Lirin, chosen guardian of the Uten Sutra which governs life and creation. May you have an easier road than your predecessors,” Sharak said.

“ _What?_ ” Lirin gaped at her.

“This can’t get out,” Kougaiji said, growing pale. “Not until we have a chance to—understand it. They don’t trust the priests.”

“Agreed,” said Sharak. “Lirin, we’ll need to discuss this later. Genjo, I am aware you have concerns. We’ll discuss that later as well. For now, Hassan—please direct all the other leaders to the east wing conference room. We’re moving there.”

“Got it.”

They switched rooms, to one further down the hall. Hassan shut and locked the heavy door behind them, the smell of grass spreading throughout the hall.

* * *

Kougaiji presented his case thoughtfully at the meeting, for someone whose mind was obviously on other matters. 

Sanzo had never lived in a desert, but through the travels he’d heard many complaints from both sides of the problem of water. This was a constant refrain at the meeting. In addition to this, the humans had to be reassured that the youkai no longer saw them as food, and the youkai had to be reassured that the humans weren’t just going to impose their political systems on the youkai cities that had sprung up.

Unfortunately, neither of those things were… technically true. Recovery from the Minus Wave was slow, and uneven. And—Sanzo had always wondered—Kougaiji, Dokugakuji, Lirin, and Yaone had never seemed as affected by it as many of the youkai in Chang’an. There seemed, for most people affected, to be a sort of cycle… Goku had tried to explain it, and Kougaiji again tried, but all that the humans heard was that no youkai was to be trusted.

There were other specific complaints.

The merchants wanted assurance that no roving bands of youkai would attack their goods. Kougaiji could not give it, but could only give assurance that he would pay reparations, which was a thorn in the side of the youkai kingdom’s chief treasurer, who reminded everyone of the human bandits who attacked youkai areas. 

Kougaiji also reminded everyone that at least several bandit gangs reported to be youkai were human.

The mayor of the human town nearest the valley where the most human attacks were reported defended himself by saying that they weren’t under his control, which would have made Sanzo in Kougaiji’s position throw up his hands and yell that _neither were the youkai bandits, you assholes_ , but Kougaiji just raised an eyebrow. The merchants’ point was moot, Sharak declared.

After all this was done, several hours had passed, multiple city leaders were slightly drunk, and at least two fights had been averted. Sanzo was falling asleep, and as he looked around, he wasn’t the only one.

Sharak called an end to the meeting after the third almost-brawl.

“I know it feels like we didn’t manage anything today,” she said.

A muscle jumped in the jaw of the youkai kingdom’s chief treasurer.

“Damn right.”

“And I’m sorry. Please remain patient, with me and with each other. Today’s session is over. I will draw up a summary for all of you. We’ll continue tomorrow.”

Everyone stood up and shuffled out, murmuring amongst themselves about the uselessness of peace conferences. Kougaiji nodded to Dokugakuji, who left, and then Kougaiji waited until everyone else was gone, and then Sharak nodded to Hassan. He shut the door again.

“This will never be solved easily,” she said. “We could have a representative from every single town here, and it would only get worse. We could be here for a year, and it would only get worse. I can’t even begin to fathom how to fix this.”

She sank back down into a chair, putting her hand over her forehead. Sanzo sat next to her.

“I’m not here to talk politics, though I admit I’m half in agreement with you,” said Kougaiji. “I know you are tired, but I must ask what you think giving a sutra to my sister will achieve. If you think it will be received well by the other youkai, _think again_. They don’t like you. They don’t trust you. They don’t trust _me_ , for having sided with you.”

“It’s more complicated than you think,” said Sanzo. Kougaiji raised his eyebrows.

“It hardly seems complicated at all. The priesthood that has denied any scriptures to my people for decades now, when previously one was traditionally ours, giving one to my little sister? I imagine you’ll need to take her away and train her somewhere.”

“It’s possible we may need to,” said Sharak. “I can understand that concern.”

“How convenient, that you would choose a high-ranking political figure for this dubious honor. How convenient that she is young and easily influenced. How convenient that she has always _liked you_.”

“It’s worse than that,” said Sanzo. “My orders were that the sutras would go to a brother and a sister.”

Kougaiji was silent for a moment.

“Impossible.”

Sanzo unwound the Muten from where it was wrapped around his shoulder, and offered it to Kougaiji.

“Is this a joke?” asked Kougaiji, and Sanzo was forced to put it on the table in front of Kougaiji, who would not take it from him.

“Sadly, no.”

“The gods presume too much. I refuse.”

“Yours would be the Muten sutra, previously held by Ukoku Sanzo, known to you as Dr. Nii Jianyi.”

“That information in no way helps your case.”

“There is no way to change the inheritance,” said Sharak. “Genjo will keep the sutra until the heir accepts it.”

“Then it will remain in your possession until I die,” snapped Kougaiji. “Which I promise you, will be a very long time from now.”

Sanzo opened his mouth to try again. _If you don’t take it, who will?_

_Things were so much easier for the old priests. You just had to want to kill them_.  _Then you got the sutra, and the training was a bonus_.   But maybe not. Koumyou had looked around, and seen no one suitable. And maybe, Sanzo had become suitable over time, but that didn’t mean—that didn’t mean he could put this responsibility on anyone else.

Kougaiji had one _hell_ of a point.  The Aspects presumed a lot of someone who already had much to do, and none of the proper training for what they were asking.

Could the Three Aspects have asked him to do an impossible thing? Worse, Sanzo had the sneaking suspicion that Kougaiji was right—that a simple, public passing of the sutras would further destabilize any political power Kougaiji had scraped together over the course of the past few months since the battle.

Could this be not merely impossible, but purposefully destructive?

There would be no reason for that, except... except the war that had just occurred.

“And Lirin?” asked Sharak.

“If she wants, the training can happen,” said Kougaiji. “I’ll ask her myself—and I and my subordinates will be present at all the training sessions.”

Sharak nodded.

“Fair.”

Kougaiji stood up, hands flat on the table. “And I will be the one to explain to her all of this. With my subordinates. They can be trusted.”

“That is acceptable,” said Sharak.

“We’re done,” said Kougaiji. “I need time to think about this, to discuss it with my sister and my subordinates. Do not ask me about it again. We will come to you when we’re ready.”

He stood up, and left.

* * *

Kougaiji agreed to the training, but it took three days of tense meetings before he finally told that to Sharak. Gojyo and Goku and Hakkai all took the news fairly well, though Gojyo sat on Sanzo’s bed with dirty boots and asked if Sanzo was going to stay to “have sleepovers and braid Sharak’s hair”, and then Sanzo barred him from their room permanently.

He’d decided what he would do. He would play along, for now, and if—if Kougaiji was correct, and it was dangerous, they’d keep it secret. Then it would be… fine. If it was only Lirin, they could deal with it. If it was only Lirin, given the power of making the plants grow... well, that couldn’t be a problem.

In the training room, which had been cleared out except for those few who were permitted to know of the new inheritance, Sharak and Sanzo tried to explain the history of the sutras, while Gojyo, Goku, and Hakkai looked on.

Kougaiji took notes in a shorthand Sanzo couldn’t understand.

“I became a Sanzo in the traditional way,” said Sharak. “Training for years and taking the tests. Everyone in this temple trains specifically for the Kouten sutra. This temple used to be much bigger, but it’s still, from what I understand, one of the biggest temples. I suppose it’s run in the old style now. I plan to run it this way for my life, as well. No offense, Genjo.”

“None taken.”

“How do you run your temple, Genjo?” asked Lirin.

“Much like this. But I didn’t become a Sanzo by training.”

“So how’d you find out you were a Sanzo?” asked Lirin. “Did you do what I did?”

“No. I inherited directly from my predecessor.”

“Hey, monk,” said Gojyo. “You never did tell us how you got your job.”

Goku elbowed him.

“It’s not a _good_ memory for him,” Goku said.

“Oh,” said Lirin. “Sorry.”

Had he really never told them? It seemed so strange that they might not have known, and yet… he really hadn’t ever talked about it. He’d never _needed_ to tell them. Goku had asked, once, when he was younger, and Sanzo had told him then. He’d kept his voice from breaking, even when he got to the part when his master had put the spell on him to hold him still and invisible, and then what had happened after.

“My predecessor found me as an infant, drowning in a river. He raised me in the temple, and when I was 13, he was killed in an attack on the temple, but just before he died he made me his heir and left his scriptures to me. There was an attack on our temple, and the Seiten—” Sanzo gestured to it, “—was stolen that night. You knew that I was looking for it.”

His heart pounded in his chest. He had not explained Koumyou, but he couldn’t have, not with everyone’s eyes on him. Even Goku didn’t know much about Koumyou.

Sharak made a sympathetic ‘mhm’ noise.

“That’s rough,” said Gojyo, softly. “Sorry, man. Wouldn’t’ve brought it up if I’d known.”

“And that _wasn’t_ that… man, Rikudo, correct?” asked Hakkai.

“No. Shuei—I knew him as Shuei, back then, I guess you’d say Rikudo—made his contract during the second of the attacks on the temple, after I left. My master was Koumyou Sanzo.”

“A very cheerful man,” said Sharak. “We exchanged letters several times. Always a very pleasant man. I would have liked to have met him in person.”

“How’d he end up with a kid like _you_?” asked Gojyo.

“Ha, ha, ha.”

“So how’d you learn how to be a Sanzo?” asked Lirin.

“That’s the thing,” said Hassan, speaking up for the first time. Sanzo’d thought he’d have more to say, considering how much he’d ribbed Sanzo for not knowing basic spells. “He _didn’t_.”

Kougaiji had remained silent the entire time, seated on the floor a bit further away from the others, but at this, he scowled and said, “So might you not be mistaken? Perhaps another is meant to hold the sutras?”

“Believe me,” said Sanzo, “you two are the _last_ people I would have picked.”

Kougaiji scowled.

“So when do I get to start training with them?” asked Lirin.

“Absolutely not today,” said Sharak. “Today is for learning what the sutras are, only. Then you may get started on the techniques that are required to manage them. It will not be easy.”

“Bring it on!” said Lirin happily.  


* * *

 

 

Sanzo picked through his duffel bag. It was unlikely they’d need to get out of bed quickly—and it was too damn hot to wear jeans to bed. He’d get to wear pajamas for the first time in what felt like maybe years. There were striped cotton pants at the bottom of his bag. He pulled them out, along with a tshirt.

“So, what do you think?” asked Goku.

Sanzo yawned.

“I think it’s time for bed.”

“No,” said Goku. “I mean, about Kougaiji and Lirin.”

“I think it’s good we stopped here.”

Goku snorted. “Yeah.”

He hugged a pillow to his chest.

“But I mean, do you think they’ll be good at being Sanzos?”

“That’s not a question I can answer. Kougaiji doesn’t even want it.”

Sanzo climbed into bed. He pulled the blankets up over his chest.

“We’ll have to figure out something to do with the Muten, but as for the Uten… Nobody thought I would be a good Sanzo. It’s only fair to give somebody else a chance.”

Besides, if they weren’t going to take the sutras… who would? Sanzo sure as hell wasn’t.

“Yeah, well,” said Goku. “You actually aren’t.”

Sanzo snorted.

“I’m bad at being a _monk_. I’m not bad at being a Sanzo.”

“Guess that’s fair,” said Goku. “That freaky guy with the dark hair, though. _He_ was bad at being a Sanzo.”

“Maybe. It’s hard to say.”

“You saw. He didn’t even have the forehead thing.”

Sanzo glanced at the bedside clock and set the alarm. Would Goku stay up _forever_ talking about this?

“Sharak’s good at being a Sanzo,” Goku said, ending the sentence with a yawn. 

_She’s very good_ , thought Sanzo, remembering how she’d managed the meeting earlier but too tired for the words to make it out of his mouth. A few seconds later, he managed a “Mhm. Better than me.”

“You’ll get there,” said Goku, patting him. “You can teach Kougaiji and Lirin. If anyone could do it, you could.” His hand was warm against Sanzo’s shoulder, a comforting weight. Which was weird. Goku did that all the time, but no other time had made Sanzo’s face grow warm, no other time had required that he hide his face so Goku couldn’t see… whatever it was doing. Definitely not a smile.

Not only did Goku believe in him—Goku had always believed in him—but Goku believed he could be… better. And he said it so plainly, Sanzo _kind of believed him too_.

But his suspicions about the Three Aspects… he’d never had faith in them. They were his bosses. Hell, any time they’d done something right, it seemed to be an accident. And even now, if they _had_ a plan, he didn’t know it.

He might ask Sharak in the morning what she thought.

“Go to _bed_.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I have a bad feeling about the youkai/human conflict in Saiyuki. It's kind of the vague bad feeling that you get from any "oppressed minority is nonhuman, and literally eats humans" worldbuilding.
> 
> And I'm not really sure how to tackle the youkai/human conflict (are they... two essentially separate kingdoms sharing an overlapping space? are they both ruled by Heaven? How is it set up that the youkai feel oppressed but also have a king of their own? How are the humans ruled? Do I just not understand anything at all? Why couldn't I have just written a completely-not-related-to-politics fic?). 
> 
> Point being I'm aware there may be problems with how I read the youkai/human conflict, or it ended up being the most ridiculously bland thing because I was afraid to tackle it. I'm open to criticism, angry rants, etc.
> 
> Oh yeah and all the chapter names are from Modest Mouse's "People as Places as People".


	3. to answer a question

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sanzo gets to work, or tries to, anyway.

Sanzo dreamed of the battle again.

He dreamed of seeing Gyumaoh striking out, even in his unfinished, monstrous form—Gyokumen Koushu’s attempt to bring him back had not been exactly successful, but they hadn’t known that at the time. They’d known something was wrong, though, because Gyumaoh had golden, glowing eyes, which made him the third golden eyed monster on the field of battle.

Goku had needed to remove his diadem, so Seiten Taisei had raced around the field, unaware of friend or foe, clawing and striking at anything that moved.

He dreamed of an endless castle basement of horrors, science and magic wound together by Nii’s powers, the smell of metal rusting in the presence of the magic and the sound of the machines whirring and clicking. And of course, the dark itself, where Nii pulled at the edges and corners of passageways and opened them into void, a horrible spiraling staircase down into dungeons where the experiments were kept and the _gate below there_ —

He knew he was dreaming, but, in the way of dreams, this knowledge came and went from moment to moment, as the scenes shifted in his mind. Bound one moment, and running down those awful corridors another, Sanzo only looked for the others.

And then he was fighting Gyokumen Koushu again, and losing this time—

Sanzo woke up because something was tickling his face, and in his dreams it was Gyokumen Koushu’s claws, barely grazing him. 

Heart pounding, he sat straight up, scratching at his nose. It took him a moment, but the blankets brushed against his arm, and the softness of his bed underneath him reminded him of where he was. He was in a room, where the only other sound was Goku’s snoring.

The itch turned out to be that he’d almost buried his face in Goku’s hair. He sat up, embarrassment making his heart pound and giving him a restless feeling in his chest, a sudden urge to get up. Goku drooled onto the pillow, deeply asleep and unaware of Sanzo’s panic.

The blue of just-before-dawn lit the room, and soon the sun would come up. For now, it was silent and calm. Sanzo sighed.

His feet were cold. He tugged the blankets back over them, unsure of what to do. Trying to go to sleep again was probably the best choice, but… He glanced at Goku again.

There were probably meditations going on at this hour. It wasn’t really something he’d thought of as necessary for the past few years, not having been in many temples, but maybe it would be better than lying awake doing nothing, at least. He got up and pulled on his robes, but left his crown behind, and began to get himself ready for the day.

Staring into the mirror with his toothbrush in his mouth, the memory of having buried his face in Goku’s hair came over him again and he spat out the toothpaste and watched in horror as his cheeks turned bright red.

He left his room. The hallways were dark still, but not so dark he didn’t recognize Dokugakuji heading toward the bathroom.

Weird to casually wave at someone you’d met first on a battlefield from the opposite side. Weirder still to have them say, “Early riser too, huh?” like it was just—nothing.

“Sometimes,” Sanzo said, noncommittally. It was too early for casual conversation under normal circumstances. “You’re normally up this early?”

“Yeah, kinda,” said Dokugakuji. “Can’t waste the day, you know.”

“Yeah,” said Sanzo. “Guess not.”

“See you around,” said Dokugakuji.

“Bye,” said Sanzo, only it sounded… juvenile. Dokugakuji waved.

Sanzo continued down the halls.

He found the kitchens and ate a quiet breakfast alone. Sharak was leading the meditations, so he sneaked in the back and sat down.

The sun rose over them, through the tall windows, and over the ornately carved woodwork. It was different from the temples back home, but Sanzo followed along well enough, and admired the scenery. After it was over, they noticed him, and whispered, but Sanzo nodded to Sharak, and left, not wanting to make small talk.

There was a lot he needed to do.

He went up to the libraries, and found books on the training of Sanzo priests, which were, of course, useless, as they had to come up with a modified, shortened curriculum. Sanzo doubted they would have very long at all. Lirin would likely need to stay with Sharak for a few years, and if Kougaiji even wanted a sutra, he’d have to stay as well…

And, of course, neither Sharak nor Sanzo were familiar with the Muten or the Uten. 

What had he _needed_ to know? What were the most important things?

There were notepads and pencils scattered around the library. He grabbed a few of each, and set to work.

Goku came up to find him around noon.

“Hey, Sanzo.”

Sanzo sighed and glanced over the five notepads he’d managed to fill.

“What is it?”

“Nothing. Somebody said you’d been up here for hours. I thought you might be getting kinda tired of working, so I brought you some food.”

He glanced over Sanzo’s growing pile of increasingly messy notes, and handed him a sandwich wrapped in a napkin.

“Thanks,” said Sanzo, surprised.

“You need anything else? Looks like you got your hands full.”

“Don’t you have anything else to do?”

Goku shrugged.

“Not really. Do you want me to leave?”

“Not if you’re quiet,” said Sanzo.

Goku nodded. “I can be quiet.”

He poked around the library shelves for a bit, either unaware or unconcerned with the fact that Sanzo was watching him out of the corner of his eye. To Sanzo’s disbelief, he pulled a book off the shelves, and sat down two chairs away, leaving a wide berth for Sanzo’s notes.

It was a cookbook. _Of course_.

Goku smiled to himself as he read it, and he fidgeted a lot in his seat, eventually shifting around so that his feet were resting on the chair across from him and tapping against it gently, noiselessly, but still visible to Sanzo. He read through the recipes and through the cultural descriptions, big colorful pictures of plates filled with delicious-looking food. Sanzo wondered if he was just reading for fun, or if he was remembering the recipes, thinking of things to ask people if he could try later.

Sanzo realized that throughout the past few hours, he’d gotten more and more tense, and he let his shoulders relax, putting down his pencil to find his hand cramping. He’d only gotten through a few more pages’ worth of notes since Goku got there. 

He sighed.

“Taking a break?” said Goku, without looking up from his book.

It startled Sanzo. Goku had looked so engrossed…

“Uh, kind of,” he said.

“I think you should,” said Goku. “You look freaked out.”

“There’s so much to do,” said Sanzo.

“Yeah,” said Goku. “But you don’t have to figure it out today. And you don’t have to figure it all out by yourself. Sharak’s helping, remember?”

Sanzo glanced over his notes.

“Okay,” he said, scooping them up into a pile. “What d’you want to do?”

Goku brightened.

“C’mon, let’s go look outside.”

* * *

 

Sanzo had never seen anything like the gardens of Sharak’s temple. After dropping his notes off in his room, they took off towards the northern side of the temple, where the gardens began.

The view alone was breathtaking. The mountains disappeared into blue in the distance, and the green valley below seemed to stretch out forever. The temple stretched up behind them, casting a shadow over the valley.

Clustered around them were bushes of flowers, and benches placed around the paths. A few of the other priests milled around, some of them tending to the flowers, and some just observing. Sanzo would have happily sat in one of the benches and let the day pass by, maybe with some tea  and cigarettes and a newspaper or just by himself, but Goku wanted to look around at everything, and they ended up on a path down the side of the mountain into the forest.

“Don’t go too far down the path,” said one of the monks. “You get into youkai territory down there.”

Sanzo thanked him, despite the ridiculousness of his warning, and trailed along after Goku. He was grateful for the shade of the forest and the pleasant breeze of the afternoon and the fact that Goku didn’t expect him to talk much. Goku chattered, and Sanzo listened.

His diadem gleamed whenever they passed through the dappled shade into a spot of sunlight. The smell of dirt and moss began to fade as he got used to it, but the cold air felt good to breathe. Sanzo’s shoes sank into the soft dirt.

Sanzo felt himself relaxing, the deeper into the forest they went. It wasn’t familiar, but the further away they went from the temple, the fewer people around, the lighter everything seemed.

He lit up a cigarette. He didn’t smoke so much these days, but that didn’t mean he didn’t miss it.

“You like it a lot here, huh, Sanzo?” asked Goku.

“I do.”

“Are you sad the temples at home aren’t like this?”

“They’re nice enough,” said Sanzo. Sanzo liked them, but it was nice to see something different. He watched a great big insect crawl up onto a leaf. “What about you?”

“Oh, I like the forest,” said Goku.

“‘Cause you’re a monkey,” said Sanzo.

“Yep,” said Goku absentmindedly.

Sanzo was taken aback by the lack of annoyance.

Goku stared at the same insect Sanzo had been watching, and shuddered.

“Um. Sanzo, I have to tell you something.”

“Don’t make it sound so ominous.”

“I was in forests when I was young,” said Goku. “I grew up in forests.”

Sanzo stared at him.

“Your memory’s coming back? Do you know why?”

“Um,” said Goku. “It’s kinda coming back. In bits and pieces, so far. That’s all I’ve gotten. Just the forests, and some streams. Some faces, but I don’t know anything about them, just kind of… a nice feeling. I think… I think it’s something the other me experienced. Like, I don’t think I had on the limiter then.”

It didn’t escape Sanzo’s notice that Goku had avoided the question of _why_.

But if Goku didn’t want to tell him—well, that was _his_ problem. Goku could have secrets.

“Are you glad?”

Goku shrugged.

“Kinda—kinda scared.”

“Of what?”

“You _know_ ,” said Goku uncomfortably. “Finding out what happened. Why I was in the cage.”

“Whatever you did,” said Sanzo, “it was a long time ago. You’re older now.”

Goku nodded.

“Anyway, I don’t know yet,” said Goku. “That’s all. Just… forests, and the sound of rivers, and the feeling of being without the limiter.”

Sanzo inspected some flowers growing by the side of the trail.

“What’s that like, anyway?”

“Huh?”

Sanzo felt the soft petals under his hand.

“Being without the limiter.”

“That’s a hard question.”

“You don’t have to answer.”

Goku sighed and looked at the flower Sanzo was looking at. It was purple, and soft. Sanzo didn’t know the name of it, but he’d seen them on his travels before. It grew edible but unpleasant berries in the spring.

“I want to answer.”

Sanzo nodded, plucking off the flower to look at it more closely. He thought he remembered that they smelled nice, and was pleased to find out that he remembered correctly.

“It’s like if you were carrying a really heavy weight, and then you took it off,” said Goku. “But I also forget… everything. Everyone. They look familiar, but wrong, too. It’s not like being drunk, ‘cause being drunk is a little more fuzzy and slow. Everything smells stronger and feels lighter in my hands, and I can hear everything, my heart and everyone else’s, and all I wanna do is move and fight.”

They both paused, listening to a rustle in the bushes.

_Could’ve been nothing_ , thought Sanzo.

“Do you like being without it?” said Sanzo.

“No,” said Goku. “But only ‘cause of how I forget. I like the way that I feel stronger and how much brighter everything feels. But—yeah. Hey, that flower’s cute.”

Sanzo handed it to him. It was sort of beginning to wilt.

“Looks like your eyes,” said Goku, holding it up. “Well, kinda.”

Sanzo scowled at him.

“Sounds like something Gojyo would say.”

Goku turned bright red.

“Aw, that’s not what I meant. I meant it like—never mind.”

Sanzo frowned, and Goku looked away.

Sanzo could pretend the silence wasn’t awkward when the birds chirped in the distance.

“Look,” he said, pointing up. “A hawk.”

“Oh,” said Goku. “Yeah, it is. Cool.”

Goku wasn’t easy to distract any more. Sanzo desperately missed being able to point out some weird nature thing, and have Goku grin up at it. He tapped the ash off his cigarette, stamping it out. The last thing they needed was to light the forest on fire.

When had Goku changed? _What_ had changed?

What was _that_ noise?

How far had they walked down the path?

Sanzo put a hand on Goku’s arm. Goku nodded at him, and quietly summoned the Nyoi-bo, stretching it to about his own height from nothing in the palm of his hand.

“Need a walking stick?” asked Goku, offering the Nyoi-bo to Sanzo. “‘Cause I can get by fine on my own, but if you didn’t bring anything—”

“I’m always prepared,” said Sanzo, drawing out his gun. He shot at the bushes and heard a yelp.

Apparently the youkai in Sharak’s area were of a higher class with regards to stealth than the average footsoldier Sanzo was used to dealing with, because even he was surprised by the number that dropped out of the trees.

Not all youkai, either. Which wasn’t surprising.

Sanzo was getting pretty tired of being a political target.

“Looks like we got ourselves a Sanzo priest,” said one, a silver-haired, too-thin human man. “The one from the East.”

“Oh, man,” said another. “Guys, we should just leave. Right now. We’ve got—”

“You gotta take a chance when you have it,” said another, further back.

“How d’ya suppose this’ll affect the peace summit?” said a woman with terrifying claws.

Goku charged, and began fighting.

“Put it right out of commission, I expect,” said another, further behind. “Kougaiji can’t talk his way out of something like this. The capture and-or murder of a Sanzo priest? This is our lucky day!”

“Didn’t anyone ever tell you not to count your chickens before they hatched?” asked Sanzo.

“Oh, shut up,” said the closest youkai woman, and then she leapt at him.

Well, shit. He geared himself up to use the sutra—preferring to save bullets, he hadn’t quite expected to be faced with a couple dozen assailants… and promptly got slashed at. Goku couldn’t hold them off long enough for that, not when there were so many this close, and he couldn’t use the sutra unless he could get back some distance and speak long enough to cast the spell.

Well, shit. He’d have to do this the old-fashioned way.

Sanzo wasn’t a fighter, technically. Not in the way that Goku was. The best he could hope for was to incapacitate them just long enough to—get back and use the sutra.

He swallowed. He couldn’t just run away, but three converged on him. There were still at least twelve he’d have to deal with, assuming Goku took care of the majority of the assailants. Sanzo swung, and his punch… didn’t connect.

Shit. He was grabbed around his waist and flung down onto his back, the wind knocked out of him, and okay, maybe it was time for the gun—somebody stamped on his hand and it hurt like hell—

His assailants were suddenly diverted by something nearby, an explosion, but that couldn’t be right.

“Not _them_ ,” hissed one.

“Run!”

Sanzo scrambled to his feet, grabbing the gun.

“Genjo Sanzo!” said a feminine voice that he vaguely recognized. “Please, stay where you are!”

Yaone?

“ _Don’t_ shoot,” said another, masculine familiar voice, easier to place now that he’d recognized the other voice. _Dokugakuji_. “I got this.”

He moved back, beginning to cast the sutra. Dokugakuji disarmed and incapacitated the attackers so quickly that Sanzo genuinely began to wonder if he’d need the sutra, and the ones that he missed, Yaone took out with a terrifying precision for someone just flinging little explosive balls.

Little explosive balls that packed a _lot_ of power.

“Careful where you aim that,” said Yaone, another explosion rocking the ground beneath them and taking out a few more youkai with it, leaving them groaning in the bush. “I’d rather not be bound by it.”

“Traitor!” somebody yelled, and then there was a scream. Yaone sighed.

“I’m careful,” said Sanzo. “I never bound my half-youkai companions, and we traveled together for years. _You_ be careful where you aim those explosives.”

“Well, I’ve never hit one of my companions either,” said Yaone, switching fluidly to her small spear and dealing several kidney-destroying close-range stabs to the nearest attackers. “Which is more than can be said for you with that gun of yours.”

“Doesn’t count against me if I was aiming at ‘em in the first place.”

“That’s not comforting either.”

“You’d aim at them too.”

Yaone gave him a small, unreadable smile.

It was quick work once Sanzo and Goku had doubled their numbers, and it didn’t hurt that Yaone and Dokugakuji were skilled fighters on their own. Whatever had brought them here, Sanzo was grateful to it.

The last few ran away. Yaone and Dokugakuji turned to Sanzo and Goku.

Goku plopped down onto the ground, sighing.

“That was weird,” he said. “There were so many of them? Sanzo, we didn’t even notice until a _lot_ had come up behind us.”

“I know,” said Sanzo, grimly.

“Are we losing our touch?”

Sanzo let it pass. It hadn’t taken them a couple of weeks to go _soft_. No, they hadn’t counted on an organized kind of resistance. Which was, in its own way, a more frightening mistake to have made.

Goku folded up the Nyoi-bo into the space between spaces that he kept it in, and sighed again.

“I hate feeling like I coulda done better in a fight,” he announced to no one in particular. “If you guys hadn’t shown up we would’ve been in trouble. They got us by surprise. Thanks for helping.”

“Are you well?” asked Yaone, as if she hadn’t spent the past three years trying to injure them in exactly the same way she’d just used to take out two dozen men in a matter of seconds.

“Yeah,” said Sanzo. She peered at him.

“Show me your hand,” she said. He held it out to her, and she took it.

Her hands were soft against his, her face serious as she bent over. She had girlish hands, shorter and rounder than his own. There was an elegance to her movements, and somehow Sanzo didn’t feel any pain though he knew he should have.

“This is a crush injury,” she said. “Please allow me to heal it.”

Sanzo nodded, and her hands began to glow with a healing energy that was just a hint more blue than Hakkai’s.

“Going a bit overboard,” said Dokugakuji.

“I consider protecting them part of our mission now.”

Dokugakuji frowned and shook his head.

“Thank you for helping us,” said Sanzo.

“Yeah, thank you,” said Goku.

“I didn’t do this for you,” said Dokugakuji. “Don't get me wrong, I like you guys. My brother likes you, and that’s good enough for me. I’m just not here to help you. I didn’t like doing that.”

“Fair,” said Sanzo.

“They’ve got a point,” said Dokugakuji. “Some of ‘em anyway. Not the humans who just want to fuck things up, but the youkai—well, maybe not those particular youkai, but others… Anyone making trouble like that hasn’t got a clue why the others are so afraid. And they’re right to be afraid. What’s gonna happen to us now?”

“It’s a necessary evil,” said Yaone softly. “Dokugakuji, this isn’t the time.”

“I just want to tell them,” said Dokugakuji, shrugging. “I didn’t do it for them.”

“Were you following us?” said Sanzo.

Dokugakuji and Yaone glanced at each other.

“Not technically,” said Dokugakuji, at the same time as Yaone said “Yes, sorry.”

They frowned at each other, and Dokugakuji shrugged. Yaone spoke.

“There were rumors,” said Yaone, “of youkai and human teamups to attack the fortress again. We’re not well known around here, so Kougaiji has been asking us to travel into town and investigate. There were people tailing you—when the fighting began, they signaled to the other forces to come join. Unfortunately, there’s our cover, blown.”

“And now,” said Dokugakuji, “we _really_ have to report back to Kou.”

“We’ll have to ask you to come with us,” said Yaone.

“Can’t have you getting attacked again,” said Dokugakuji.

Sanzo looked at Goku, only to find Goku already watching him. Sanzo nodded.

“Let’s go,” he said.


End file.
